Markowkette vs. Monsieur X: Two completely new names at the very top of the list. A win for either of them clinches a spot in the top 16.

Ragingduckd (AI) and Stef: As the only players with 8 points each to tie last round, both players with 9 points have to play someone with 8 points; otherwise they'd be scheduled to play each other two rounds in a row. A win for either of them is an almost certain entry into the round of 16.

60 total players with 5 points or higher: Every single one of these names is still in contention for a spot in the top 16.

Ragingduckd (AI) and Stef: As the only players with 8 points each to tie last round, both players with 9 points have to play someone with 8 points; otherwise they'd be scheduled to play each other two rounds in a row. A win for either of them is an almost certain entry into the round of 16.

Yah, Stef and Andrew tied each other two rounds ago. Last round Stef beat Marin and Andrew the ghost of Lespeutere, who due to his inability to interact with matter found himself unable to play even a single game.

Apothecary, Feast, JackOfAllTrades, Nomad Camp, Spy, Trader, Mandarin, Tactician, Trading Post, BankBank is a monster here on this Colony board, with both Apothecary and Tactician on the board. We both open Silver/Potion and get Apothecaries. But he gets a Tactician in turn 6 while I didn't because I never had $5 or $6 without a Potion and I preferred Apothecary over it, probably a mistake. I get 2 Banks instead of his only one, but he can pull the trigger faster than me, getting double Colony in turn 11 while I get single Colony in turn 12 and in turn 13, he then gets double Colony in turn 14 again. I get single Colony in turn 14 as well, but can't get the fourth Colony before he can play his Tactician again which sealed the deal for him.

Fool's Gold, Hamlet, Develop, Warehouse, Wishing Well, Conspirator, Death Cart, Fortress, Wandering Minstrel, Junk DealerWe both here for the Conspirator chain. I open Warehouse/Conspirator and he opens Wishing Well/Conspirator. I had great shuffle luck as I were able to play Warehouse in turn 3, buy a Junk Dealer and draw my Warehouse in turn 4 again, playing Junk Dealer and triggering Conspirator. My opponent goes for 2 Junk Dealers and a thinner deck which I don't think were necessary with Wandering Minstrel and Warehouse being present. He also prefers Fortress over Wandering Minstrel which makes sense as he will run out of cards that he might be able to trash to his 2 Junk Dealers and Wandering Minstrels aren't that great in a well thinned deck. I'm able to win the Conspirator split 6/4 which is a big deal. In turn 11 faust gets Province and a Death Cart to compensate the lost Conspirator split while I immediately green heavily with Province/Duchy. Unfortunately his deck is only capable of generating $15 per turn which is gives me the opportunity to keep pace with him. In turn 14 we are even in points (3 Provinces to 2 Provinces and 2 Duchies) and I had to go for double Duchy. He had a stall turn and had to trash his Death Cart to get to a Province. I then go for double Duchy + Estate as I think my deck is capable of handling the green cards. He then decides to break PPR with Province/Duchy and he had a very fortunate turn where my Junk Dealer draws a non-terminal to trigger my Conspirator, my Wandering Minstrel discards 3 Duchies and my Conspirator finally finds the Warehouse that I needed. I can therefore also Province/Duchy for the win.

Native Village, Stonemason, Sea Hag, Cache, Contraband, Merchant Ship, Tribute, Upgrade, Venture, King's CourtKing's Court is present, but really no great payload. I open Sea Hag/Silver to his Upgrade/Native Village. I really like his 5/2 and think I'm in a bad shape. But my Sea Hag shows up as early as possible, in turns 3 and 5 again and get an Upgrade in turn 5 on my own. faust gets his Sea Hag in turn 5 which he never plays and trashes later to an Upgrade. We both go heavily into Upgrades and get a similar deck, but my Sea Hag really slowed him down in getting a thin deck, so my deck gets thinner faster as I can trash Coppers instead of Curses. From there it just snowballs, I can get a few more Ventures and less Coppers and get to $8 more regularly and win the game.

Fool's Gold, Ambassador, Workshop, Spice Merchant, Taxman, Thief, Mystic, Outpost, Pillage, AdventurerThis is the first Ambassador game that I screw up. We both open Spice Merchant/Ambassador, but he uses it for +Buys to get to Fool's Gold, while I get a second Ambassador and try to get a thin deck and use Mystic for my economy. I get a very thin deck very fast and get a few Fool's Gold to have some money, but it all didn't went how I wanted it to be as I just can't get to $5 regularly and had a lot of $4 hands. faust did get 2 Provinces really fast, but then decided to build again and basically had this in the bag from the get go. My strategy was just doomed to fail.

This is a power engine board. After I see him open double Urchin, I open Chapel/Smugglers and think I'm in a very good shape. My Chapel misses the reshuffle though and collides with the Smugglers. faust gets his Mercenaries in turn 6, but the discard attack did hurt I think only once. From there it just went worse and worse. He can thin his deck just better than I can and it all snowballed again from there. Not much to say there. But I'm confused. Is double Urchin here really better than Chapel!?

I thought about going for Beggar/Counting House, I thought about Courtyard/Margrave BM, but thought that an Ambassador engine with Heralds would be superior. I realised too late that it was a Shelters game (d'oh), but still it should work all right. So, I open Ambassador and my opponent immediately gets a Tunnel. What!? I thin and thin, but again somehow my deck doesn't come together. I realised too late that my money has to come from action cards so that my Heralds keep hitting so I added 2 Militias and only few money. In turn 15 after a good turn I get a Curse what was a big mistake because I mostly short of actions because I can't rely on Heralds hitting all the time and were never able to return it. Also I could only get to $7 most turns as I only had enough actions to play one of my 2 Militias. It just didn't work well together. In turn 24 I could win if I hit $8, but I only get to $7 (as so many times) and lost the game.

Thanks for the games, faust, and good luck for you for the rest of this tournament.

Vagrant, Loan, Workshop, Advisor, Rats, Young Witch, Cache, Ghost Ship, Highway, Knights, MintWe both open Young Witch/Workshop (it's the bane). Then, on the second shuffle, we both get a 5 Copper hand. I decide Copper won't be bad and buy Cache, he decided Copper will be bad and buys Mint. He can curse much faster, but I have stronger economy and manage to get big enough lead that I can buy remaining Knights and Vagrants to end the game before he catches up.

Death Cart, Tournament, Wandering Minstrel, Golem, Cache, City, Count, Counting House, Laboratory, Hunting GroundsI support my Tournament with Gold and Labs, he goes for Tournament/Wandering Minstrel/Hunting Grounds. I manage to win the race to Followers, then he takes Princess, then I take Trusty Steed, then he takes Bag of Gold, finally I grab Diadem. I start greening earlier while he is building, probably preparing double Province turns with Princess. But Followers slow him down and before he's ready I manage to get more than half of the points available.

Transmute, Oracle, Bishop, JackOfAllTrades, Quarry, Thief, Mandarin, Treasury, Wharf, King's CourtKing's Court, Wharf, Treasury and Quarry. So we both open Silver/Quarry and race to power actions. I manage to connect KC with Wharf first, win KC split 8-2 thanks to this and the game is decided.

Ambassador, Hermit, Bridge, Scout, Sea Hag, Cache, Explorer, Mountebank, Altar, FarmlandI'm first with 5/2. 5/2 is usually horrible against Ambassador, but there are no villages here, so I'm thinking that perhaps Mountebank can just power through it. Anyway, I basically have no choice but to find out. He goes for Ambassadors and Hermits and speedily turns them into Madmen. Am I in trouble here?

I think in a world where I didn't get such perfect draws--and so little Mountebank collision--I might have been in trouble. Also, he really, really needed to add Bridges to his deck. It's tough when you have to rely on Madmen as your only village, though. And the fact that he's trashing his Curses fairly easily makes my Mountebanks hit more often, giving him lots of Copper. He eventually really does de-junk his deck, but I have 5 Provinces by then. It doesn't come together quick enough for him. I'm honestly not sure if this is the expected result or not, given how lucky I felt my draws were.

Lighthouse, Pawn, Black Market, Monument, Trader, Apprentice, Upgrade, Border Village, Harem, Hunting GroundsWhat a fun one! It looks to me like an Apprentice/Border Village thing. I can open Apprentice thanks to Baker. He opens Upgrade instead. I think this is a mistake here (maybe not generally, but in this game). The Black Market is kind to him, giving him Fortress. He adds Apprentice and more Upgrades and I think I am in some serious trouble. His draw and gaining should be off the charts!

Unfortunately for him, his draws are terrible, and he isn't doing anything good with his Fortress until really, really late. By then I have a Province lead and tons of Monument chips. His potential is so explosive, though, so I decide I should go for piles. I am 16 points up, and I buy the last Border Villages and bring the Monuments pile down to two. He has a lot of ways to gain but not much economy. I know he can't double Province. He can get tons of Duchies by Upgrading Fortress though...

Ultimately, he needs one more buy to tie or $2 more money to win. He has neither, and I can pile out Duchies on my next turn. Fun, tense game.

Secret Chamber, Fortune Teller, Oasis, Scheme, Smugglers, Philosopher's Stone, Feast, Rogue, Saboteur, ExpandNot much happening here. He opens Fortune Teller/Silver. I open Smugglers/Silver since I'm in second position. After I get a $2 hand, I decide I might as well pick up Secret Chamber. I wish I could chalk this up to brilliant strategic play, but really it was circumstantial. Okay, Secret Chamber was a hero here. This has never happened to me before. It totally obsoleted his Fortune Teller (in fact, his Fortune Teller was only smoothing out my hands), and hard-countered his Rogue (okay, I'll put back Estate and Copper). And he was playing these cards A LOT because of Scheme. With two Secret Chambers and the put back effect from Fortune Teller, (I would top deck the Chamber and then Estate, saving SC for next turn and having him skip zero of my cards), I felt totally defended.

Additionally, again, my draws were extremely fortuitous. The one time his Fortune Teller really hit me, it skipped my whole deck, leaving me with 4 cards. I then drew these four cards--Estate, Estate, Estate and Province--reshuffled, and drew my fifth card, Secret Chamber. This ensured a green-free shuffle that really, really sealed the game.

I think I played very well here, and resisted any bonehead moves, though extremely good luck went a long way.

Transmute, Coppersmith, Ironworks, Smithy, Golem, Contraband, Minion, Rebuild, Soothsayer, WharfA Rebuild mirror, hooray. An engine is definitely viable here, I'm just not sure if it would have been fast enough to beat Rebuild, especially since the only village is Golem, which makes the engine a lot slower. Or would Wharf-BM be competitive against Rebuild?

Beggar, Fishing Village, Lookout, Island, Quarry, Harvest, Hunting Party, Ill-Gotten Gains, Margrave, ExpandEngine all the way here. My opponent has better luck than me early, and although I manage to make it pretty close by the end he cleverly drains the Islands with help from his Quarry to edge ahead for the win. I thought his Island buys earlier in the game were mistakes but they ended up allowing him to get the last 4 on his last turn to end the game, so maybe he knew what he was doing all along?

Beggar, Loan, Workshop, Caravan, Conspirator, Feodum, Smithy, Spy, Butcher, InnThere's no +Buy so I open Loan/Caravan, transitioning into a Butcher-based money deck. My oponent goes for something more engine-like but it's way too slow, I'm able to get 5 Provinces (6 if you count the one I trashed) by T13. That despite having flipped my one Butcher on T4 with an ill-advised Loan play. Butcher-BM is FAST.

Courtyard, Squire, Steward, Coppersmith, JackOfAllTrades, Pirate Ship, Trader, Tribute, Upgrade, FairgroundsI wanted to go engine, but with Squire being the only +Buy AND the only +Actions, and the only draw being the +2 Cards variety, I think it was going to be too slow. Well there's Tribute but if your opponent goes for a money deck then Tribute won't work as a village. I don't know, maybe it could work with lots of Squires, using Jack for draw? I doubt it. We both open Courtyard/Jack and play basically a mirror. My thinking with my Upgrade buy was that if it collided with Jack I could either clear out a Copper and then draw 2 with the Jack, or turn the Jack into a Duchy. I'm able to do the latter on my penultimate turn, so maybe it was worth it? Anyway, I win this one mainly because my opponent forgot that he had trashed all of his Estates, and he bought the last Province to lose by one point because his Fairgrounds was worth only 2 VP. Ouch, babe.

Embargo, Vagrant, Menagerie, Alchemist, Rats, Talisman, Bazaar, Knights, Market, NoblesAnd I also won the finale of the match because of a glaring oversight by my opponent: he opened Potion/Silver on this board. I have the 5/2 which just makes it even better. I'm able to Embargo Alchemist on T3 and that's pretty much the game I think. In retrospect, I think I should have opened with Bazaar instead of Sir Vander but it doesn't really matter, I'm able to win handily.

Game 1: I think Tactician is key here, and the fact that you never got one may have lost the game for you. During the game, I also wasn't sure about my Copper buys, but looking back, I think they helped me as well.

Game 2: I still think I would have won this had I gone Duchy/Duchy instead of Province/Duchy on my last turn. Well, that's why PPR is a thing...

Game 3: Still not sure which of us had the better opening here. I feel like I had some bad shuffle luck, but in general Uprgrade should be superior to Sea Hag. Maybe I'm wrong on this though.

Game 4: I think both Mystic and Outpost are a trap here. Without any kind of handsize increasing, this really needs to be played as a money deck. I also didn't understand you trashing Fool's Golds to Spice Merchant.

Game 5: I chose Urchin over Chapel because of two things: 1. It's a Wharf board, so quick thinning isn't that important. 2. Urchin/Mercenary slow down your ability to trash. This could have been much closer if your Chapel hadn't missed the shuffle though.

Game 6: I think both of us didn't play this very well. could be we just should have ignored Ambassador and gone for a BM-ish deck with Tunnel as reaction to Margrave/Militia. Transitioning into BM later in the game helped me win this. Though, if one of us could have gotten all the Heralds, he would also be in a good position, so I'm not sure...

As a general note for the Qvist vs Faust games, I think a bit more thought needed to go into the endgame when appraising the initial kingdom. So one game started sea hag vs upgrade, straightforward start, but the endgame needed a commitment for merchant ship or tribute or venture or complete upgrade. Mixed strategies were going to be weak. Most ambassador decks need planning to expand out from a small deck to buy provinces and it was important in both games here. The last game had a lot of options that would have changed the purchases while the deck was developing, including the horn of plenty finish for an engine player.

Not that I have had a great back and forth discussion about any of my matches so far. It still was a little disheartening for that to be your only response on the games I played against you. Anyways here are my thoughts on the games!

Game 1. This game was I think one of my favorites. You open double lighthouse which I really don't understand. Yeah margrave is there but there isn't a village and so I don't really like that opening. I go hard for hunting parties and grab a altar much earlier then you. Then you focus on peddlers which again I don't understand because there was only 1 +buy and getting one platinum in your deck is much more important then 5 peddlers in a HP game. Anyways I think my favorite part about this game is that I top deck a LH every turn and have one out so I don get hit by a margrave the entire game which is why I won this one.

Game 2. You have 5-2 opening on a cutlist board which stresses me out and I open double lookout instead of double lighthouse. I have 2 lighthouses and 3 lookouts by turn 12 but have 5 ruins still in my deck and you blow me apart the rest of the game.

Game 3. This was the most interesting game of the match. Rebuild is there but we both decide to build a menagerie engine. You open double steward and I fall behind. I decide to do some weird tricks with ironworks and grab estates. But that probably wasn't smart. I get a rebuild too late and you are able to end it pretty easily.

Game 4. This was a risky engine board with the only draw in steward. But if you thin enough I still think that's still good. And so do you because we pretty much mirror buying 1 mandarin each for support. I obv get really fortunate that all of your border villages are on the bottom of your deck one shuffle and am able to end it before I stall.

Game 5. This game was very luck dependent. Mountebank hits hard before any light trashing can be done with moneylender. I king a Mountebank turn 11 even though you had a king before me. Try lining up a Kings Court with anything when the only village is a Kinged Treasury. This slog lasts 32 turns and I think I'm about to lose when one of my kings line up with a monument. Got lucky on this one.

Game 6. I double province on turn 14 which is my only good hand of the entire game. I completely over value Watchtower here thinking I wouldn't draw an extra card because I would trash the curse. But of course you gain the curse first and then trash it so you still draw a card, effectively making watchtower a ruined library. I didn't have a good strategy going into this one. Got outplayed here.

Thank you for the games yed! I'm not expecting you to reply to this but it really does help my game when someone of your caliber comments. Hopefully the games were at least a little fun for you because they were a blast for me. Good luck in the last round!

Up against an IGG/Courtyard opening with 4/3, I desperately try to build an engine. I contend that it's possible on this board if you get early upgrades but the way I went about it was a no-go. liopoil crushes me.

The first game in a long time that I've seen Tunnel shine, with the help of Horse Traders and deck thinning. A madman turn lets me get a bunch of golds at once and the extra points from tunnel give me a more than comfortable point lead for the Province race.

I decide that the engine isn't worth it since all the components cost $5 and there's no +buy. He goes for it against my Rabble-BM and he ends up taking the tie, though if he had seen my last hand it might not have ended that way.

An engine game with Masquerade, Haggler and Mining Village. I think he gets too many Masquerades, and ends up passing me good cards once or twice. I jump the gun on trashing my villages, though, and he pulls ahead in the endgame.

Thanks for the games, liopoil, and thanks for everyone who tuned into the stream!

Well there's Cultist and Young Witch with no way to trash Ruins or Curses. My opponent opens 5/2 and I'm way behind, but Young Witch is OK to open with. I get two Cultists and still lose the Ruins split 9/1, but fear not! With five more unique cards in my deck that I didn't have to go out of my way for, Fairgrounds and Gardens are my salvation! His deck doesn't show much focus after the Cultist debacle where I focus more on money and I'm able to end the game with six 6-point Fairgrouns and six 6-point Gardens for an essentially unbeatable score.

I thought I'd catch some complaints from the chat about getting Golds over Counterfeits, but they were relatively happy with the way I played this one (which is saying something, usually most of the chat is high-level people pointing out everything I did wrong ). Apparently there is now a drinking game where you drink every time I consider buying a Silver, and another one where you drink every time I sigh. You guys are hilarious

King's Court, Ambassador, and Saboteur -- the price of losing the Ambassador war is huge, so that's the objective. My opponent opens with a Sea Hag which has to be a mistake, and I get really thin and start King's Courting Ambassadors and then Saboteurs. The game goes awkwardly long because even after he has a 50+ card deck which includes 10 Curses and not really any good cards, I don't have any +Buy to end the game with, so the best move is to keep attacking. Eventually I'm able to put together a turn where I Ambassador a bunch of cards to him to empty piles and buy a Colony to win.

According to WW, the guy who wrote the article on Ambassador, I could have played tighter with my Ambs in the beginning of the game, which I believe, but I'm not quite sure how to line up my chat messages with certain turns in the game so I don't quite know what I did wrong...

Vineyards board for sure, I prioritize draw with Hunting Party and he goes straight for a million cheap actions. I get a lucky first shuffle with Cutpurse hits, so I hit $5 and he doesn't. He doesn't go for Potions until too late so I win the Vineyards split 5/3 and his aren't worth enough to make up the difference. With more draw I'm able to end the game on piles and pick up a little extra green to be comfortable.

The main takeaway from the chat is that we both should have trashed heavily with Forager. I thought more Hunting Parties would be just as good but trashing would be nice to supplement the draw.

According to WW, the guy who wrote the article on Ambassador, I could have played tighter with my Ambs in the beginning of the game, which I believe, but I'm not quite sure how to line up my chat messages with certain turns in the game so I don't quite know what I did wrong...

There was discussion about you getting too much Silver, but no full consensus. However, you should have given him Silver with KC/Amb when you had nothing worse. Silver is not bad for him, but BM is not going to make a comback and flooding him with Treasure would bury his only oppotunity (thin the deck and play the engine himself) even deeper.

The main takeaway from the chat is that we both should have trashed heavily with Forager. I thought more Hunting Parties would be just as good but trashing would be nice to supplement the draw.

Again, no consensus, but I still think Forager/Squire/Xroads/Market/Library was the way to go, at least to open. That helps trashing faster and getting the thing going. Afterwards, depending on how the piles are, you might add HPs for extra stability, but not sure. You do want all the Squires you can get and some Markets so you don't need to play them for buys.

Nice streaming. I am sorry you get beaten up like that in the chat, but I am sure almost everyone would.

Haven, Scrying Pool, Shanty Town, Workshop, Baron, Mining Village, Quarry, Scavenger, Highway, MineGame 1: Scrying pool mirror match: I am first player and i haver the better opening with 4/3 to his 5/2.I try to focus more on getting a lot of gains to snowball him down with 2 Workshops and 2 Barons and a lot of villages.I get more scrying pools than him as i opened potion and he didn't. The main difference is his Scavanger that gives him better reliability in draw. I think my opening luck is evened out by very bad SP draws in the midgame, but his aren't so much better aswell. It's very even until his last turn where he can get 3 Provinces. His Scavenger made the difference, i should have gotten one over my 2nd Baron. Accordingly he wins, well played.

Crossroads, Herbalist, Pawn, Smugglers, Remake, Talisman, Bazaar, Counterfeit, Haggler, MandarinGame 2: Big Money Mirror with Remake Haggler and Counterfeit. My Remake misses the shuffle and collides with the only terminal aswell and i can only play it once in the whole game. But i get a little luckier with the money distribution in my shuffles and get 3 Counterfeit and 1 Haggler to his 1CF and 2 Haggler. Usually 3 CF might be too much but i think here it's reasonable with the extra treasures from Haggler. We start greening at the same time and he gets unlucky with a few 7'sMy Counterfeits give me the Flexibility to hit exactly 8. We start Duchy dancing and i can Counterfeit a Gold to get double Duchy once that and the 1 extra Estate that i didnt trash give me the lead that i need. He has to break PPR and i win.

Game 3: Huge engine board with Throne Room, Village, Wharf, Kings Court and Upgrade, and there is IGG.We both decide it's possible to build the engine ignoring IGG at start. We are quite even here the only difference is i have one extra Upgrade and he one extra Wharf. But he gets better draws as my 5 costs are always at the very bottom of the shuffle. It snowballs extremely fast from here on and he starts pinning me down with IGG's that he upgrades into golds later on. I resign.

Oracle, Scheme, Steward, Cutpurse, Mining Village, Scout, Sea Hag, Thief, Apprentice, SoothsayerGame 4: Engine Board without + buy.I start Scheme/Steward he Silver/Steward we mirror each other for a while with the difference being that i focus more on trashing and getting the draw up and he a little more on economy buying Golds on turn 6 and 8 while I never buy a single treasure as there is Soothsayer for my economy. He surely gets unlucky only hitting 6'S and 3's instead of 4's and 5's, but still buying the treasures is a big mistake here, as he underestimates the power of Soothsayer. I get 2 of those with enough villages and an Apprentice so i can reliably draw my deck. I can give him 2 Curses each turn and he only has a single Steward and can only trash one per turn on average.I cruise to an easy win from there.

Smugglers, Village, Death Cart, Feodum, Ironworks, Procession, Trader, Worker's Village, Wharf, GoonsGame 5: Wow this board! Really interesting. There are all the components for a very strong multi-Goons engine, but there is also Trader-Feodum. As the feodum strategy isn't really suited to a fast 3 pile ending i think the Goons engine has the time to catch up and i favor it a little. Now there is Smugglers here so i think if i go for a fast goons engine and he goes Smugglers into it he will probably win. Also Smuglers is not too bad in a Feodum Trader mirror. I open Smugglers/ironworks as they both help either of the strategies and i have all the flexibility to adjust to what he is doing. He opens the same.Now we play a weird game where he focuses hard on ironworks getting 4 or 5 of them while i only get 2 or 3 and then a few villages we also both get 3 Smugglers as it get's clear that we will have to go into feodum now that the piles are already a little low. He wins the Feodum split because his only village connects with a smugglers+ironworks hand and all my villages decide that they want to stay together like my terminals but seperate from those. He rushes Estates now, while i try to getch up with silver flooding my deck to get maybe a few duchies and higher value feodums. In the end my 3 Feodums are worth nearly as much as his 5 but the estates give him a comfortable lead.I'm not sure if i played this wrong i really like getting more villages than him and less ironworks. But maybe the best thing is more in between us. He has more reliability to at least get 1 feodum each turn and i have the higher chance of getting 2 a turn but also the higher chance to get none. So i think all in all this comes down to luck, but he certainly played it very well, too.

Game 6: Very disappointing ending to a rather interesting series so far. The two strategies here are rebuild without any really good support and Taxman-Fools Gold with Library later.He is first player and starts Taxman/FG. I am pretty sure if the FG go uncontested it's stronger than rebuild and if rebuild contests FG it's weaker than rebuild with silvers instead (you wont hit 5 for a while).So i think i have to mirror him and i do so. He wins the FG split because of first player advanage and i'm basically dead anyway. He then get's a rebuild on 5 which i think should have been a Library (he agrees on that after the game).As i only have 4 FG in a deck of nearly 20 cards i dont have the biggest chance of getting to province a lot so i Taxman my FG into Silvers and react the other FG whenever i can (my only hope is the the FG he has to discard this way keep him away from provinces) It get's closer than i thought but it's clearly not enough and he wins.

Thanks for the very even games Monsier X. Congratulations and good luck for the last round, maybe we will see each other again in the playoffs.

Both open Baron/Silver and get a pair of Harvests each, since there wasn't much more exciting things. I was really behind, not connecting Baron with Estates, but I managed to sneak in a win-by-one in turn 19 anyway, after KingZog3 bought Crossroads instead of Estate in his last move.

I open Silver/Militia and KingZog3 opens –/Trading Post. Feodum and Trading Post looked like a combo to me, even though I didn't know how good it works. At the end I had 4 Feoda and 19 Silver (after having trashed two of them). That is not enough against KingZog's 6 Provinces though, who played more for big money and Provinces.

This game was pretty tight...I had 5-2 and probably should have just opened Salvager/Fool's Gold as my opponent did, or even Taxman/Fool's Gold, but I thought I'd get tricky with Hunting Party/Fool's Gold instead, for mad cycling. My Taxman did little besides acting as Salvager fodder. My second Salvager helps me to squeak this one out.

5-2 again for me. I seriously considered opening Soothsayer or maybe even Stables, but Rebuild is just too tempting. qmech goes for a cool-looking engine involving Watchtower topdecking lots of Bridges and Throne Rooms, but it's just not fast enough I guess.

We both open 5-2...lots of 5-2 this round. The question is, do you go for Witch or IGG? I go pure IGG (with first player I can sneak a curse in before his shuffle), he gets a Witch, we end up splitting the curses. However I am able to grab a lucky Province later on to clinch it. Possibly my Nobles was a mistake, but hey, it got me to Province.

Thanks for the games qmech and good luck in the duration of the tournament!

Titandrake beats wicket 3 - 1, will edit this post with more things as I have time.

Video: http://www.twitch.tv/titandrake/c/4004388I tried to record chat with the stream as well, but because I minimized the chat window it didn't get redrawn until I looked at it again. Woops. I read through chat at the end, so if you skip there you can at least get the chat for middle of game 2 and on.

The only way to increase hand size is Vault, but you have Pillage as an attack, and +Buy. The only +Actions is Bandit Camp, which is good but expensive. Deciding between Death Cart/Silver to hope for early Forge, and Silver/Silver into Vault-BM. I decide on the BM because all of the engine pieces you want in multiples are pretty expensive, but I think the engine should win here. wicket does Death Cart/Silver, gets bad Death Cart luck early, but manages to outrace Vault-BM anyways. I'm actually not sure how that happened, guess Death Cart trashed all the Ruins before killing itself.

Basically Swindler-BM with Soothsayer. This game felt super arbitrary. Not sure whether Swindler/Silver is better than Swindler/Swindler here or not, you have Soothsayer as an action to play so I'm assuming Swindler/Silver is nicer.

I go Vault-BM with 1 Trading Post, but there's a pretty decent engine here. Alchemist for draw, Junk Dealer to trash, and Graverobber to gain Provinces, with Squire as +Buy. I'm not confident enough that I can play the engine well enough to race Vault, so I decide not to. wicket goes for Alchemist with a straightforward money payload, but it doesn't work out. It might work, but I feel like Graverobber shenanigans are faster than buying treasures in the engine. Would like someone to try building the Alchemist engine here, because it seems very plausible.

Not that I have had a great back and forth discussion about any of my matches so far. It still was a little disheartening for that to be your only response on the games I played against you. Anyways here are my thoughts on the games!

Sorry, I did not feel like commenting right after those games and next day I forgot about it.

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Game 1. This game was I think one of my favorites. You open double lighthouse which I really don't understand. Yeah margrave is there but there isn't a village and so I don't really like that opening. I go hard for hunting parties and grab a altar much earlier then you. Then you focus on peddlers which again I don't understand because there was only 1 +buy and getting one platinum in your deck is much more important then 5 peddlers in a HP game. Anyways I think my favorite part about this game is that I top deck a LH every turn and have one out so I don get hit by a margrave the entire game which is why I won this one.

I opened double light houses for the peddlers. I did not want any silver in my deck. My dreamed deck was a lot of peddlers, trash most of my junk to HP with Altar and at some point add Platinums and maybe gold and aim for double colony.Problem is not hitting Altar early. It needed better trasher to work. Outpost was mistake.Yes straight HP money was better....

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Game 2. You have 5-2 opening on a cutlist board which stresses me out and I open double lookout instead of double lighthouse. I have 2 lighthouses and 3 lookouts by turn 12 but have 5 ruins still in my deck and you blow me apart the rest of the game.

Lucky win. Yes you should have opened double Light House. It is hard to trash the ruins from cultists, they come too quick. Also with double Lookout you won't buy cultist, unless really lucky.

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Game 3. This was the most interesting game of the match. Rebuild is there but we both decide to build a menagerie engine. You open double steward and I fall behind. I decide to do some weird tricks with ironworks and grab estates. But that probably wasn't smart. I get a rebuild too late and you are able to end it pretty easily.

I am not sure the engine is good here with no +buy and no way to activate Menagerie when you have 2 provinces in hand. But if you go engine you need to trash fast. Steward is good for that and it gives you economy later. You want have only one copy of each card you coan not get out of your hand.Another way is to gain estates with IW and then rebuild them (I thought you were planing to d that in game when gaining estates).Maybe plain rebuild or some variant with steward+rebuild is better. With shelters not sure, with estates probably better.

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Game 4. This was a risky engine board with the only draw in steward. But if you thin enough I still think that's still good. And so do you because we pretty much mirror buying 1 mandarin each for support. I obv get really fortunate that all of your border villages are on the bottom of your deck one shuffle and am able to end it before I stall.

I had too many terminals and I should have bought Golem earlier for reliability. My goal was double province turns, but maybe it is not worth it here. And actually I am even considering BM Mandarine here...

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Game 5. This game was very luck dependent. Mountebank hits hard before any light trashing can be done with moneylender. I king a Mountebank turn 11 even though you had a king before me. Try lining up a Kings Court with anything when the only village is a Kinged Treasury. This slog lasts 32 turns and I think I'm about to lose when one of my kings line up with a monument. Got lucky on this one.

I don't get how did that got so close when I lose the curse split 7/3. Maybe you should have build more and focused on KC Monument instead of greening. You can leave trasury on top that way to have always KC target. Multiple Rabbles would kill me for sure with all those curses.

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Game 6. I double province on turn 14 which is my only good hand of the entire game. I completely over value Watchtower here thinking I wouldn't draw an extra card because I would trash the curse. But of course you gain the curse first and then trash it so you still draw a card, effectively making watchtower a ruined library. I didn't have a good strategy going into this one. Got outplayed here.

Maybe the engine is possible here, but you need more remodels for it, they would reduced your hand size and allow WT to draw more, problem is that you don't have good target for remodeling coppers and no way to discard them either.Maybe even pirate ship can be good in engine, but probably not, I had too many golds.

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Thank you for the games yed! I'm not expecting you to reply to this but it really does help my game when someone of your caliber comments. Hopefully the games were at least a little fun for you because they were a blast for me. Good luck in the last round!

Thanks you too. Yes, it was fun. I was just mad at myself for all those mistakes, again sorry for no comments earlier. Good luck to you too, maybe with 9 points we can still make it to top 16 (if Kirian was not lying about 5+ have chance).

Good luck to you too, maybe with 9 points we can still make it to top 16 (if Kirian was not lying about 5+ have chance).

markowkette estimated that qualifying for the playoffs will require 11 points, or 10 with a strong tiebreaker. This sounds about right to me, looking at the standings after round 5: The player ranked 16th (me!) has 8 points and a weak tiebreaker, so assuming average play by everyone after that, 10 points and a weak tiebreaker is right on the boundary. If you have 9 points after 6 rounds, a win in round 7 should give you a very good chance of making the top 16.